February, 2011

The Microsoft Research Connections blog shares stories of collaborations with computer scientists at academic and scientific institutions to advance technical innovations in computing, as well as related events, scholarships, and fellowships.

On a chilly autumn day, robots descended on Altamont Elementary School in Altamont, New York. Were the students terrified? Far from it: they were enchanted and energized, as they explored the realm of social robotics under the guidance of Jennifer Goodall and Katy DeCorah of the University at Albany-State University of New York (UAlbany). Goodall and DeCorah presented UAlbany's Social Robotics Workshop, an innovative program designed to introduce K-12 students to the roles that robots might play in the future and to excite young people about technology in general.

The brainchild of Goodall, assistant dean of the Department of Informatics, and Nick Webb, senior research scientist at the university's Institute for Informatics, Logics Security Studies, the Social Robotics Workshop introduces students to the core concepts of robotics and enables them to experiment with robots and to program simple interactive behaviors. Built around the "sense, plan, act" paradigm-an approach that dates from the earliest days of robotics-the workshop challenges the students to program robots with personalities. For example, students might program their robots to politely say "Excuse me!" when they bump into someone, or they might have their robots convey annoyance through an angry expression on the "face" screen.

"Exercises using these software platforms allow students ... to try simple social robotic experiments, such as talking, indicating primitive emotions and simple vision exercises," said Goodall. The program clicks with students in large part because they can see a real connection between their simple experiments and future robotics applications. Moreover, working with the robots inspires the students to learn more about computer science and engineering, which is the key goal of the workshop.

The Social Robotics Workshop is one of 19 projects that have received grants since the inception of the Seed Fund in 2007. To date, grants totaling more than $315,000 have been awarded. The UAlbany initiative was one of three to receive grants in round six of the Seed Fund. In the recently completed round seven of the competition, five projects won grants of $10,000 each. The winning initiatives range from programs to encourage women undergrads to major in computer science to a two-week summer outreach program aimed at high schoolers.

Back at Altamont, the success of the Social Robotics Workshop is confirmed in the thank-you notes from the students. "Dear Jen," wrote one of the young experimenters, "Thank you for helping us program our robots. It was much easier with your help. I like the way you broke it down into steps. It made it much easier. It was exciting to work with robots. It felt like we were real scientists! When I go to collage [sic] I want to do robots. THANK YOU!"

A free, interactive virtual learning environment, WorldWide Telescope enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope. Through its interactive dashboard, you can browse high-resolution imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes, giving you a visually powerful perspective of the size, scale, and features of the universe. Curtis Wong, principal researcher for Microsoft Research eScience and co-creator of WorldWide Telescope, demonstrated some of the capabilities of this versatile technology at TEDxCaltech on January 14, 2011.

February is a time when many of us seek ways to improve and change for the better while refining elements that already work. The spirit of evolution doesn't have to stop at the individual level, however. I'm pleased to announce that, starting today, our organization will go by a name that better reflects who we are: Microsoft Research Connections.

While our name is changing, our commitment to our previously established charter remains strong. Microsoft Research Connections is dedicated to supporting those who dream the impossible—inventing a better world one idea at a time. We build partnerships with the world's leading computer scientists and researchers. In the computer science world, we collaborate with the academic community in critical fields that will shape the future of computing-including parallel programming, software engineering, and natural user interfaces.

Microsoft Research Connections will continue to:

Collaborate with and support the inspiring work of the world's top academic researchers and institutions.

Establish partnerships and develop technologies that fuel data-intensive scientific research to help solve some of the most urgent global challenges.

Extend the Microsoft platform to the academic community so that the scientific community can use it to build and innovate.

Provide fellowships, grants, and awards to help foster the next generation of world-class scientists who are critical to the future of scientific discovery.

We are committed to doing all this and more in the coming year. But now, our name truly reflects who we are, what we do, and where we are going in the future.

—Tony Hey, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Research Connections Division of Microsoft Research